Kenya’s John Kelai celebrates after winning the Mumbai Marathon as Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi applauds. African runners grabbed the top three places in men’s as well as women’s categories
— Photo by PTI

Menace
in tennisAfter tainting cricket,
match-fixing seems to have spread its tentacles to another ball game,
writes M.S. UnnikrishnanMahesh
Bhupathi’s
revelation that he was contacted by a bookie to tank India’s Davis
Cup match against Holland in Jaipur has rocked the All-India Tennis
Association boat like never before, as the Grand Slam player is not in
the habit of telling lies.

Double
standards in selectionVaibhav SharmaIT
was a classic case of bad timing. As the Indian squad celebrated the
historic victory in Perth, the selectors sprang an unpleasant surprise
on three team members.

Putting
their best foot forwardHarpreet
Bedi idolises Cristiano
Ronaldo, but unlike the twinkle-toed Manchester United winger, he
announces himself by finding the target with a scorching long ranger
rarely executed by footballers of his age.

IN THE NEWSBack in businessVikramdeep JohalWHEN
out-of-form Irfan Pathan was sent home from South Africa in late 2006
to play in domestic cricket, it seemed cruel of the team management to
single him out for such treatment. Little did he — or anybody else
— know that this would be a blessing in disguise for him.

After tainting
cricket, match-fixing seems to have spread its tentacles to another ball
game, writes M.S. Unnikrishnan

Mahesh Bhupathi’s revelation could open a Pandora’s box — Photo
by AFP

Mahesh
Bhupathi’s
revelation that he was contacted by a bookie to tank India’s Davis Cup
match against Holland in Jaipur has rocked the All-India Tennis
Association (AITA) boat like never before, as the Grand Slam player is
not in the habit of telling lies.

Yet, what has startled
AITA president Yashwant Sinha and secretary-general Anil Khanna is the
timing and the Australian Open venue Bhupathi chose to drop the
bombshell. Bhupathi may well get hoisted by his own petard as the AITA
top brass wonders what was the provocation for him to make the
"confession" after a long gap of 12 years.

Why didn’t he tell his
non-captain Jaideep Mukherjea when the bookie rang him up on his
cellphone to tank the match?

And why didn’t he inform
the AITA about it, as it was not something to be trifled with, though it
happened much before the cricket match-fixing scandal broke out. He had
nothing to fear as India had won the tie and he himself had clinched
both his singles matches.

Khanna also wonders —
may be in jest — whether Bhupathi had a cellphone then as the mobile
network was yet to catch on in the country, with only a privileged few
having the contraption.

Though these doubts
persist, the AITA has decided to probe deep into the matter as tennis
and its players in India have always been perceived to be above board,
and it is the duty of the federation to clear the cobwebs on the fair
name of Indian tennis.

Traditionally, Indian
Davis Cup players have hailed from a privileged, educated background,
and it was an honour for them to represent the country, with monetary
gains being least of their considerations.

Big money came to Indian
tennis only in the late 1990s, and it were Leander Paes and Bhupathi who
bargained for a better deal for the Davis Cuppers, and eventually
clinched it.

For players like
Ramanathan Krishnan, Premjit Lal, Jaideep Mukherjea, Vijay Amritraj and
his two brothers Anand and Ashok, Ramesh Krishnan, Paes, Bhupathi et al,
representing the country was an elevating, proud experience, and they
recorded most of their memorable victories in the Davis Cup. So, it is
difficult to sully the image of Indian tennis with match-fixing
allegations, but Bhupathi’s charge has definitely put a question mark
on the good image of the game.

"The country’s
image is more important than anything else," said Khanna, who is
also the president of the Asian Tennis Association and a member of the
executive board of the International Federation. Perhaps, Bhupathi’s
revelation may come as a god-send opportunity for the AITA to put in
place the necessary checks and balances in the Indian tennis squads,
hitherto taken for granted, and neglected.

Former Davis Cupper and
national coach Akhtar Ali, whose son Zeeshan Ali also played in the
Davis Cup, would not even imagine that something like match-fixing or
tanking of matches could have ever happened in Indian tennis. "We
all played the game for the love of it, and representing India was
considered a great honour. No Indian player would have ever adopted
unfair means in the Davis Cup to make money," he asserted.

Match-fixing, though, is
nothing new in Indian sports as long before the cricket scandal erupted,
such unfair means were reportedly in existence in football, at the Asian
level in particular.

After the cricket
controversy, there were also muted allegations of
"match-fixing" in other team sports as well, but never ever
was the game of tennis mentioned. It used to be a common feature in New
Delhi to bet on and even "fix" matches in local football and
hockey tournaments. Such allegations continue to surface in local
tournaments, but to suspect tennis players of being the "fix-it
type" is hard to believe.

Tennis
is the most popular sport with punters after horse racing and
soccer, according to the general counsel for the Internet betting
exchange Betfair.

David O’Reilly
told a seminar on Integrity on Sport hosted by the London law firm
Charles Russell that betting on tennis was particularly popular in
central and eastern Europe, where there was no culture of sports
gambling. "The key factors are technology and
television," he said. "It’s truly global."

Last August, Betfair
voided all wagers on a match at the Sopot Open in Poland between
Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello because of what is
said were irregular betting patterns. The Association of Tennis
Professionals (ATP) is investigating the match. — Reuters

IT
was a classic case of bad timing. As the Indian squad celebrated the
historic victory in Perth, the selectors sprang an unpleasant surprise
on three team members. Quite unceremoniously, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid
and Sourav Ganguly were left out of the team for the ODI tri-series in
Australia.

Laxman might have expected
not to be selected, despite his good form in the ongoing Test series, as
ignoring him for one-dayers has become a norm. Dravid struggled in the
first two Tests against Australia, but even a gritty 93 in Perth could
not convince the "wise men" to retain him. Ganguly’s
exclusion was even more surprising as he had been among the runs before
he failed at WACA.

The omissions have been
justified with the oft-repeated arguments, "We are preparing for
the 2011 World Cup" or "We need a youthful fielding
side". The big question is: If that happens to be the case, why not
axe Sachin Tendulkar as well? Or is the 34-year-old little master, who
by his own admission is finding the gruelling itinerary
"tough", still "young"?

The "phasing
out" of the seniors should not be done selectively. The BCCI’s
plan to prepare a team with an eye on the future is commendable, but
surely the same criterion wasn’t adopted while picking the Test
captain a few months ago. The ageing Anil Kumble was chosen ahead of the
young Mahendra Singh Dhoni. That was a stop-gap arrangement at best,
even though it has been successful.

The 2011 World Cup is too
far-off a target. The Indian team in the shorter versions of the game
has some relatively imminent challenges to deal with — the upcoming
tri-series, of course, the Champions Trophy later this year, and the
Twenty20 World Cup in 2009.

The squad for the
tri-series is obviously short on experience. Young players like Gautam
Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla and S. Sreesanth
have never played for Team India in Australia. It would be tough for
them to acclimatise themselves to the conditions at such a short notice.

It remains to be seen
whether the absence of Ganguly and Dravid would be felt. Incidentally,
the Big Three did the selectors a huge favour by opting out of the
Twenty20 World Cup last year (and the team didn’t miss the stalwarts
one bit). Perhaps it’s time for them to simplify things again by
quitting one-day international cricket (like Kumble did last year).
Otherwise, they might continue to be at the mercy of the selectors, who
can keep them in or out for any reason.

St Stephen’s Football Academy boys rejoice after winning the U-15 Manchester United Premier Cup (India) in Goa. Harpreet Bedi (inset) scored the match-winner
in the final against Mahindra United.

Harpreet
Bedi idolises
Cristiano Ronaldo, but unlike the twinkle-toed Manchester United winger,
he announces himself by finding the target with a scorching long ranger
rarely executed by footballers of his age.

The 14-year-old from Dehra
Dun scored the all-important goal for St Stephen’s Football Academy,
Chandigarh, in the summit clash of the Under-15 Manchester United
Premier Cup (India finals) against Mahindra United in Mapusa, Goa,
recently.

St Stephen’s had lost to
SBHS Academy, Gurdaspur, in a penalty shootout in the semifinals, but
they got to play in the final because the latter, along with three other
teams, were disqualified for fielding overage players.

Quite aptly, St Stephen’s,
the only original semifinalist surviving after the disqualifications,
emerged the champions.

"We were fully
confident that all our boys were not overage and the defaulting teams
will be punished," academy’s assistant coach Sandeep Singh said.
He prepared the team for the final after coach Surinder Singh had to
return home.

St Stephen’s will
represent India at the South-East Asia regional finals in Kuala Lumpur
in June. The winners of the regional finals will play in the Manchester
United Premier Cup in England.

The academy is doing a
fine job of developing soccer talent at the grassroots level and several
of its trainees have impressed the selectors.

Harpreet has already
caught the eye of the national coaching staff and earned a call-up for
the preparatory camp under AIFF’s technical director Colin Toal, ahead
of the AFC U-16 Championship to be held in Uzbekistan in October.

Fittingly enough, Toal and
national chief coach Bob Houghton were in the stands to watch Harpeet in
action.

Harpreet, whose parents
run a restaurant in the Uttarakhand capital, began playing the game for
the sheer fun of it but now the Class IX student harbours ambitions of
turning out for India.

"His parents brought
him to Chandigarh four years ago and we held trials before inducting
him," coach Surinder Singh said. "He has a good
technique."

"Another trainee,
Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, was the Indian goalkeeper at the AFC U-16
qualifiers in Dammam, Saudi Arabia," said Surinder.

Apart from Harpreet,
goalkeeper of the U-15 team Shubham Gupta and Johny Chand Singh have
also been called up for the camp, he said.

The academy is part of an
educational institution and has 50 students at a time till they pass
Class X.

"We try to develop
players so that they can be inducted in places like the Tata Football
Academy, where their skills can be fine-tuned further. There, they will
also get vital exposure and can aspire to play in tournaments such as
the Durand Cup and the second division National League," the coach
said.

There are several football
academies coming up in Chandigarh and Punjab, which are testimony to the
passion for the game in the region.

"However, apart from
JCT, there are not any good clubs around and these too don’t have a
very good academy. They make up for that with their resources and can
afford to sign players from the rest of the country and abroad,"
Surinder said.

The academy, started in
1998, is largely made up of local players but there are some, like
Harpreet, who come from other places to develop themselves as
footballers. — PTI

Irfan Pathan has re-established himself as an asset to the Indian team
— Photo by AFP

WHEN
out-of-form Irfan Pathan was sent home from South Africa in late 2006 to
play in domestic cricket, it seemed cruel of the team management to
single him out for such treatment. Little did he — or anybody else —
know that this would be a blessing in disguise for him.

In the year or so since
that "wake-up call", the Baroda cricketer has not only
regained his touch but also emerged as a mentally stronger and
technically better player.

He was the Man of the
Match in the Twenty World Cup final against Pakistan as well as the
Perth Test versus Australia (India recorded remarkable wins in both
matches).

Incidentally, it was in
Australia that Pathan made his Test debut as a 19-year-old in December
2003. The venue was Adelaide, where India triumphed to achieve their
first Test victory Down Under in over two decades. A few months later,
he played a key role in India’s unprecedented double series win (Tests
and one-dayers) in Pakistan.

At that time, he seemed to
be the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket since Kapil Dev. A
new-ball bowler who had a knack for taking crucial wickets, and a useful
batsman who was comfortable playing up the order, even as high as number
three.

His meteoric rise,
however, was followed by a shocking slump in form, giving rise to
speculation that fame and fortune had come to him too soon. He lost
rhythm as a bowler and tried in vain to stay afloat by dint of his
batting. Things came to such a pass that he suffered the ignominy of
being sent packing midway through the South Africa tour, which was
surely the lowest point of his fledgling career.

All that is history now as
Pathan has by and large cemented his place in the team in all three
forms of the game. He’s back to taking wickets and scoring runs (His
gutsy 46 in Perth against Brett Lee and Co showed how much he had
matured as a batsman). One wonders whether things would have been
different had he played in the Melbourne and Sydney Tests.

Despite his spectacular
comeback, Pathan, still only 23, knows from experience that there is no
room for complacency. He has to deliver regularly as a bowler. His
batting is a bonus for the team, but he can’t remain in solely by
making runs.

If he maintains his focus
on his game and fitness, Pathan can become a great bowling all-rounder
like his role model and unofficial mentor, Wasim Akram.